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Comment Re:5 9's (Score 1) 86

by romanr (#50072815) Attached to: Open Compute Project Comes Under Fire

Exactly this. Pick the right tool for the right job. If you are just serving up simple web pages to the masses, go cheap, they can always hit refresh if things fail.

If you have serious money flowing through the platform, plan and purchase accordingly. What is an outage going to cost you? A $50,000 server may end up being very, very cheap if an outage costs you $100,000 per hour.

Comment Suckers wanted! (Score 1) 85

If the chip was efficient enough to actually cover it's own cost, shouldn't 21 just build it's own cluster and print it's own money? Oh, it's not? Maybe we can get someone to pay for all of the electricity this thing uses and just throw them a few pennies every once in a while to keep them happy ......

Comment Re:Do Canadian credit cards for sub $10? (Score 1) 248

by romanr (#43591843) Attached to: In Canada, a Government-Backed Electronic Currency

If, as a merchant, you're paying $0.10 + 3% per transaction, then you may want to look for a better deal. My wife's bakery doesn't do a huge volume (tho that would be nice), and only pays:
- $0.06 per transaction for debit/interact payments
- 1.6% per transaction for MC/Visa

She will also let someone use plastic to buy a cookie for $0.70 - yes, we loose a few cents on it, but the customer will be back and the next time they do buy more. (Kind of funny, watching someone buy a cookie for a quick snack / sugar rush, walk out the door, take a bite, turn around, come back in and buy a dozen).

Comment Re:Is Wind up and running? (Score 1) 104

by romanr (#35116368) Attached to: Canada Courts Quash Gov't Decision On Globalive

Not quite.

1) The law as currently written says Wind Mobile can't operate in Canada due to foreign ownership restrictions.
2) CRTC follows the law and says Wind Mobile can't operate due to foreign ownership restrictions.
3) Tories say they should be able to operate in Canada.
4) Somebody, probably a competitor not happy with 3), takes it to court.
5) Federal Court says: Wind Mobile should not be doing business in Canada because the law says it can't.
6) Tories are going to have to get the law changed if they want Wind Mobile to operate in Canada, or Wind is going to have to change it's ownership structure such that it complies with Canadian law.

As much as I think the CRTC is realy screwed up and makes a lot of stupid decisions, in this case, they were actually doing what they were supposed to.
Medicine

High Fructose Corn Syrup To Get a Makeover 646

Posted by samzenpus from the same-great-taste dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With its sweetener linked to obesity, some cancers and diabetes, the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) doesn't want you to think 'fructose' when you see high fructose corn syrup in your soda, ketchup or pickles. Instead, the AP reports, the CRA submitted an application to the FDA, hoping to change the name of their top-selling product to 'corn sugar.'"
Image

Son Sues Mother Over Facebook Posts 428

Posted by samzenpus from the check-your-family-status dept.
Most kids hate having their parents join in on a discussion on Facebook, but one 16-year-old in Arkansas hates it so much he has filed suit against his mother, charging her with harassment. From the article: "An Arkadelphia mother is charged with harassment for making entries on her son's Facebook page. Denise New's 16-year-old son filed charges against her last month and requested a no-contact order after he claims she posted slanderous entries about him on the social networking site. New says she was just trying to monitor what he was posting." Seems like he could just unfriend her.
Image

Scientists Use Sex-Crazed Bugs As Pesticide 107

Posted by samzenpus from the doin'-it-hopper-style dept.
ByronScott writes "In today's 'gross news' category, some female insects just might be getting lucky. As an alternative to toxic pesticides, scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have created 'super-sexed' sterilized male leafhoppers to knock bug boots with females in the wild, resulting in decreased populations. Yes, that means that the female bugs will miss out on the joys of motherhood, but the idea that the insects will be having some fun instead of being gassed to death by poisons is pretty cool."
Software

Drupal's Dries Buytaert On Drupal 7 55

Posted by Soulskill from the on-the-horizon dept.
itwbennett writes "The Drupal community has been working on Drupal 7 for two years, and there are 'hundreds of changes' to show for it, says Drupal creator Dries Buytaert in an interview with ITworld's Esther Schindler on the occasion of Drupal 7 going into Alpha test this week. Most notable for end users are 'some massive usability improvements,' says Buytaert, while site builders will see the greatest changes in the Drupal Content Construction Kit (CCK), which has been moved into the Drupal core. But one thing that hasn't changed is the not-so-easy upgrade path. 'The upgrade path for a Drupal site has never been really easy, to be honest,' Buytaert says. 'We do break backwards compatibility. It's a little bit painful because it requires all of the contributed modules — and there's 4,000-5,000 of them — to make changes.' But Buytaert doesn't think that's all bad. 'Innovation is key. Backwards compatibility limits innovation,' Buytaert contends. 'The rule we have is: We'll break the API if it makes a better API, and if it allows good innovation and progress to be made. Also: The second rule is that we'll never break people's data. We'll always provide an upgrade path for the data.'"

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